Dear Editor,

I can understand what the Governor is trying to do and I agree with some of his proposals that he put into law but I also believe that he is blaming the wrong people for the mess the state is in. How can you pay 1.5 percent of your salary when you have to first take out Federal, State, FICA, Unemployment, and Family Leave Taxes plus Pension out of your pay? Then pay the 1.5 percent would make more sense. Also if two employees have the same coverage and the coverage coast the same as the state, or the municipality why should one employee pay more than the other, just do to the fact that they make more money or they are working longer in the same title. What are we on the Titanic with different classes, upper and lower? When a public employee retires and does not receive a salary from the State of New Jersey how is he going to pay for his benefits for he no longer receives a salary from the state and he is only living on his pension, which is basically half of his salary and he still has to pay all of the taxes that are do first and his benefits are also cut to the minimum and loses some benefits as well. So why doesn’t the plan state that you keep all of your benefits for life for you are paying for it so it should not be reduced.

Here is a way to save money let all of these politicians and political friends get rid of their state and municipal cars, I’m sure that they can afford to buy their own cars as we have to and pay for Gas, Insurance, Registration, Repairs and Tolls as we have to do to get benefit. Especially when we all see these cars down the shore on the weekends or out to dinner after working hours or just taking it home for the right.

Do you really think that your taxes are going to go down or are you going to see more waste in government spending, like the bridge to know where or some road that nobody uses or the millions of dollars that they spend on trips to other countries on our dime? Stop blaming the entire public workers of this state for it was only a hand full of workers who cheated the system and put the blame on the politicians who created the system and allowed these employees to do what they did. Maybe it would be a good idea if everybody contributed to the states problem not only public employees for we all have to pay taxes, don’t we.

Leonard Lucente